10 must-have chrome extensions for Testers

This is not just a blog which tells you to add few things to your already existing big list of tasks, in turn it helps you to make the Testing easy and do it in a smart way. I can say, Chrome Extensions are the wealth of software Testers which makes our lives easier and helps us to do smart work. They help us to add more functionality to the browser and helps us to ease the work, and get it done in a very short time.

Google Chrome is one of the most popular and must-have browsers for all testers across the globe. It allows us to increase productivity all in the comfort of our internet. We have plenty of options that make Google Chrome robust, safer,   smarter, and more productive with one browser. As Tester, we need our work to be done efficiently and more smartly. Google Chrome gives us options for many extensions, which make it the best.

Here I am curating the 10 must-have chrome extensions for Testers to make the testing easier and smarter.

Let us get familiar with the extensions one by one and adopt them in our day-to-day testing activities.

1. Testsigma Recorder
2. Selectorhub
3. LambdaTest 
4. Clear Cache
5. Awesome Screenshot: Screen Video Recorder
6. Resolution Test
7. Lighthouse
8. Exploratory Testing Chrome Extension
9. Spell Checker for Chrome
10. FULL PAGE SCREEN CAPTURE

Please note: All of these are free tools, but some of them have paid features we can use accordingly.

1. Testsigma Recorder:

Testsigma recorder is used for recording end to end interactions with the web applications and store the actions in plain English sentences and tests are executed directly on the cloud. Testsigma is an open source test automation tool and can be used freely just by signing up. Then, testers can just add the Testsigma Recorder chrome extension and kickstart the automation journey.

Link :  Testsigma Recorder

2. SelectorsHub

SelectorsHub is a chrome extension which helps testers write and verify xpath, CSS Selector , Playwright selectors, Jquery and JS path. It also helps us to generate unique xpath and css selector. It is the most helpful tool for automation testers to get all the locators just with a single click.

Follow below steps to use SelectorsHub xpath plugin

1. Add it to chrome extension 
2. After adding it to browser, restart the browser. 
3. Open DevTools.
4. Click on SelectorsHub tab (refer screenshot).

Link: SelectorHub

3. LambdaTest 

LambdaTest Chrome Extension helps testers to run the cross browser tests on the cloud faster.

We can choose configurations faster and run the tests directly from the browser tab which ever we want.

This extension increases productivity, lesser testing time and is collaboration friendly. It has many more exciting features like geolocation tests, we can even schedule screenshots which makes testing easier by reducing time in testing.

Link:  LambdaTest

4. Clear Cache 

While testing , whenever any deployment is done , as a tester we will be facing cache issue where we misunderstand as application is not deployed properly. To resolve this  issue, we can use the Clear Cache chrome extension and clear the cache. We can even customize what and to what extent the data needs to be cleared. Using this extension we can quickly clear the cache.

Link: ClearCache

5. Awesome Screenshot: Screen Video Recorder

Awesome screenshot is the most useful and highly rated screen capture and image annotation tool on Chrome. It helps us to capture whole page or only some part of any web page.

We can add annotations, comments and capture the desktop even.

Link: AwesomeScreenshot

6. Resolution Test

Resolution Test is an extension for Testers to test the web pages in different screen resolutions.

It even helps us to define our own resolutions, own browser sizes and test the applications.

Once it is installed, click on the menu with a list of dropdown containing different screen resolutions and we can just click on each as per our need and test how the look and feel is displayed.

Link: Resolution Test

7. Lighthouse

Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool which helps to improve the performance, quality of the web pages.

When testing a web page, Lighthouse runs a set of tests against the web page and generates us the report of the status. By seeing the status, we can improve our application conditions.

Link: Lighthouse

8. Exploratory Testing Chrome Extension

Exploratory Testing Chrome Extension helps testers to make web exploratory testing easier and smarter. It helps us to report bugs, ideas, notes. It helps us to take screenshots during the session. It tracks URL automatically and see the session results in the report. It helps us to export session to JSON, CSV and HTML.

Link: Exploratory Testing Chrome Extension

9. Spell Checker for Chrome

Spell Checker Chrome Extension makes us to easy to use.  It supports 12 languages altogether for spell check. It helps us to check spellings of words and highlights the misspelled words. It has user defined shortcuts, color and dictionary.

10. FULL PAGE SCREEN CAPTURE

Full Page Screen Capture captures a screenshot of your current page entirely and reliably without requesting any extra permissions.

It helps us easily to take a full page screenshot of your current browser window. In order to take the entire page of the screenshot , we can scroll to each visible part and it assembles all the pieces. 

We need to export the result to PNG, JPEG or PDFs using all configurable from the chrome extensions’ options.

The extension is managed by an independent developer.

View the original open source project on GitHub: 
https://github.com/mrcoles/full-page-screen-capture-chrome-extension.

These are the 10 must-have Chrome Extensions for Testers that can facilitate and speed up the testing process. They make our work easier and life simpler.

Hope you liked it and you will be adding some to your regular toolkit and make use of them.

Having these chrome extensions will allow us to perform QA Testing faster and smoother and it yields more reliable results.